Sullivan v. Northridge

• Decision Date: 10 October 1923
• Citation: 246 Mass. 382,141 N.E. 114
• Parties: SULLIVAN v. NORTHRIDGE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

246 Mass. 382

141 N.E. 114

SULLIVAN

v.NORTHRIDGE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Oct. 10, 1923.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Worcester County; Henry A. King, Judge.

Action of tort by Margaret Sullivan against Robert Northridge for personal injuries sustained by falling of roof of piazza on premises owned by defendant, and in which plaintiff's father occupied one tenement. Directed verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.

J. C. Mahoney, of Worcester, for plaintiff.

McDonald & Proctor, of Worcester, for defendant.

DE COURCY, J.

The plaintiff's father, with whom she lived, was tenant at will of the second floor tenement in a two-story house owned by the defendant. On February 24, 1920, she went out on the piazza to take some clothes from the clothes reel, when the piazza roof suddenly fell down upon her, causing the injuries complained of. There was evidence that the plaintiff's parents occupied this upper floor when the defendant purchased the property; that the premises were then in good condition; that about ten months prior to the accident the defendant removed a pipe which had carried the water from the roof, and ‘put new boards on the roof where he pulled the pipe out’; that thereafter the piazza roof leaked, and after the accident the timbers of this roof were found ‘split and looked water-soaked and rotten.’ At the close of the plaintiff's evidence the trial judge directed a verdict for the defendant.

The controlling question in the case is whether this piazza roof was included in the premises let to the second floor tenant, or whether the defendant retained the control, and consequently owed the plaintiff, as a member of the tenant's family, the duty of using reasonable care to keep it in such condition as it apparently was in at the time of the letting-as in the case of common entrances, halls and stairways. On the evidence disclosed, the landlord would not be legally liable to the plaintiff if the control of the roof, like that of the piazza floor and failing were in the tenant, and the plaintiff has not put her case on that ground. See Conahan v. Fisher, 233 Mass. 234, 124 N. E. 13. The evidence, however, would warrant the jury in finding that the defendant retained control of the roof when he let the tenements to different tenants; and that he exercised that control during the tenancy. And there was testimony that ‘the roof of the piazza and the roof of the house...